Characters/Balin
Overview | width="230px" valign="top" | Pros: * Great Attack and Speed stats * Great AoE options, including her base attack * Berserk damage buff makes up for lack of critical hits | width="230px" valign="top" | Cons: * Dies easily and frequently * Hero skill has friendly fire * Standard low luck of Brittania knights |} Skills |} Sir Balin the Savage, also known as the knight with two swords, is somewhat of a war leader among Brittania's knights. Her destructive force is so high that her sword slashes are classified as cannon explosions! Appropriately, she plays like a glass cannon: buffing her damage output by going into a berserker rage before unleashing destruction over areas of the battlefield. Her passive skill requires her to be right on the front lines as well, heavily reducing the Defense of the enemy directly in front of her. Unfortunately, all of this has the side effect of drawing a lot of enemy attention, and when you couple her low Defense stat with the Berserk state's increase to received damage...she dies. A lot. Balin is one of only two characters that utilizes Explosive Slash as a base attack. It has normal sword range, but instead deals cannon-type damage to an entire row of enemies! The trade off is that it has a bit lower damage output and higher delay than the standard sword-type slash. Due to cannon-type attacks only having advantage against spearmen, throwers, and mages, this attack is actually quite effective at building up Brave for your team, especially once she's in the Berserk state. Her next skill is a cornerstone of Balin's damage output: Berserk. This highly dangerous self buff doubles the damage dealt and received. This allows her to really lay down some heavy damage over a decent area, especially when using her last two skills. Dolorous Stroke is likely Balin's best skill, with the exception of its considerably long delay. For 3 Brave cost, you deal 270% damage (540% while Berserk!) to up to 3 diagonal targets, you shift them all up one panel (which can trigger the 1.5x collision damage multiplier), and inflicts Curse. Curse is a particularly nasty status ailment, dropping all of the afflicted target's stats by -3 for one turn. This is actually more notable than the duration implies, as the Speed debuff delays their next turn's arrival. Her hero skill is the explosive sword Cenferchyn. This skill's AoE is a huge cone that, with smart positioning, can potentially encompass the entire enemy terrain! It has the usual 5 Brave cost and a solid 210% damage (420% while Berserk, of course), but will damage any allies in the AoE. Also be wary of using this skill after building up enemy aggro, as it does require a moderate 30 wait time before execution. Items Balin's item setup depends on whether you wish to embrace her glass cannon nature or try to mitigate her suicidal tendencies. Personally, I say empower that crazy engine of destruction! If you agree, you'll definitely want to put a decent resting item on her, so that unit replenishment costs don't get out of hand. You'll also want to utilize damage boosting items and possibly Brave generation on death or at the start of battle. The former gives your team a boon when she's killed, but the latter gives her the resources to first-turn Berserk. If you would rather have a more balanced Balin, first thing to do is boost up her survivability! It's not hard to make her a very well rounded character, capable of taking some solid hits while still dishing out acceptable damage. Either path, keep in mind that even though she exclusively uses cannon-type attacks, she is classified as a sword-type unit where items are concerned. Good Item Synergy: # Resting items #* Amrita or Elixir make Balin charging in to a glorious death much easier on your income # Damage boosts #* Greek Fire is ideal here, but Doujigiri and many Sword-type items are quite effective # Brave gain #* Use Triton's Conch Shell for turn 1 Berserk, or any +Brave on unit death items to reward the lethal side-effects of Berserk # Damage mitigation #* Armor items such as Hiraishi Doumaru or Phobos Mail can turn Balin into a very well-rounded character Missions Category:Characters Category:EiyuuSenki